The Coyotes overcame a deficit with a third-period rally to beat Nashville on Wednesday, and they're hoping to use that momentum heading into two tough weekend games.

The Coyotes (4-4-3) visit Dallas (7-4) Friday and host Pittsburgh on Saturday. Center Eric Belanger knows the severity of those two tests.

"It's a big challenge," he said. "Dallas is a team that's playing well at home, and Pittsburgh, we knew the power they have on the team, so I think at this point we have to take it one game at a time and start feeling good about ourselves.

"We're doing some good things, but there's still things we need to work on, we all know that, but I think it's just a question of getting a couple of wins together, and have everybody feeling good about themselves to get out of this hole."

The Coyotes need a victory over the Stars for their first back-to-back wins of the season. Rallying against Nashville was a major step, Belanger said.

Two third-period power-play goals, coupled with an intense penalty-kill, spurred the come-from-behind win. "This is key because there's some games this year we could have won," he said. " . . . To be able to come back and get two big goals on the power play, which was one of the areas we needed to work on, it got us the win.

"We know our special teams, how important they are, and our penalty-kill I feel is very good now. If our power play can start going, it's going to help us a lot."

Coyotes coach Dave Tippett, who led the Stars to five playoff appearances in six seasons, is familiar with the personnel.

"They have some people who are high skilled people that if you make mistakes, they're going to capitalize on them," he said. "They're a team that can be very dangerous."

Facing the challenge

Forward Scottie Upshall said putting together a string good games - contests in Detroit and Chicago come up next week - will represent a big test.

"We couldn't be playing any better teams," he said. "We've got a really tough schedule ahead of us, and I think it's going to be a real big, four, five, six games for us. We're looking for some consistency to just continue to score goals and win games."

Upshall sees the rally against Nashville as a possible omen.

"I think that's a really good sign for things to come," he said. "We're climbing that mountain right now, just trying to find a way to just to get over little humps, and I think coming back on a team like Nashville, which is a real solid defensive squad, is a good sign."

Ice chips

Forward Wojtek Wolski came back from two games as a healthy scratch with an assist on Lee Stempniak's power-play goal that tied the game at 3. He played some at center, but there was no indication on what that could mean later.

"We'll see where he is," Tippett said. "I thought he made a great play on the power-play goal. He's a guy that's searching, trying to earn that confidence back."

-áDefenseman Derek Morris said before Wednesday's game that adversity can lead to success, and that was borne out.

"I think when things aren't going well, we have a tendency to be a little tentative, not as aggressive as we've got to be," he said. "We've had some bad bounces here and there that have gone the wrong way and it's caused us to kind of snowball a little bit.

"I think we've learned from it, I think we're better, we'll be better from it, and obviously getting everybody back healthy will help."